Tiers are for cakes —

T-Mobile’s service to be limited no longer

The carrier is returning to an "all you can eat" data plan September 5.

"Unlimited" is a word that often comes with small print, but T-Mobile announced late Tuesday night that it will be offering a "truly unlimited" data plan starting September 5. The smallest of the big four telecom companies in the US (and AT&T's erstwhile merger partner) currently uses a tiered pricing scheme for customers, and throttles data speeds—or drops customers to a 2G network—after a customer goes over the specified amount.

But no more, the company says. According to the New York Times, the new data plan can be purchased for $30 a month with a T-Mobile subsidized phone, and $20 a month for customers whose phones are unsubsidized or purchased elsewhere. Those prices only apply if the customer is purchasing a voice and texting plan as well, says All Things D.

The move from Unlimited* to Unlimited, comes at a time when the top players in the telecom world seem to agree that tiered pricing is the best way to deal with the ever-growing data demands of smartphone bearing customers. AT&T was the first company to get rid of unlimited data, with Verizon following in 2011. Sprint has remained a holdout, continuing to offer unlimited talk, texting, and data plans, but there has been somespeculation as to whether Sprint will keep its unlimited plan.

All Things D points out one interesting thing about T-Mobile's new direction: while the new, truly unlimited plan is $5 cheaper per month than T-Mobile's current highest tier of data (5GB), customers won't be allowed to use their phones to tether laptops or tablets to the new data plan. So, while limits on data are gone, what you can use the data plan for is still, well, limited.

Many CDMA phones can't do voice and data at the same time. Further, roaming on CDMA is dicey. I found voice always worked, but often voicemail didn't work when roaming. If you never leave your town, CDMA will do.

Sorry, I should have said "CDMA tech" is better. GSM can be "better" because of better world wide support, more options, etc etc.

CDMA is "better" because it requires a fraction of the amount of signal power for the same distance, is much more resilient to noise, has much better range, can use multi-path signals reflection to amplify the signal, can support more users per tower, has almost no logical limits to how many towers are in an area, no worry about another tower already using the frequency.. etc etc etc.

I use CDMA because that's what I can use reliably. I can't do voice and data at the same time anymore, but that wasn't an issue for me. Trying to get a phone call on AT&T was. I honestly don't care which technology is in my phone as long as it can work as a phone. I definitely noticed a drop in speed after switching to VZW, but I get texts when they're sent and I can actually make calls now.

I do live in SF, which has notoriously bad AT&T and T-Mo service. If I lived in a different city (aside from Manhattan), I probably would have stuck with AT&T. Also, the poor service isn't entirely AT&T's fault. Getting permission to set up a new cell tower is a long and laborious process and will likely be thwarted by all the hippies spouting pseudoscience and of course, the NIMBYs.

Good thing these kinds of business practices weren't around 100 years ago, imagine how screwed up things would be today. Unlimited water in your pipes? Are you kidding? You can have all the water you want but only if it is accessed through your refrigerator drinking water dispenser, at least on this plan. What? You want to flush a toilet? Sorry, but you can't do that - not with this plan - we don't have a plan for that sorry.

There is no such thing as "unlimited", especially if in a shared wireless medium. With everyone maxing their wireless connections 24/7 you'd just get crappy service for everyone.

People need to grasp the concept that "unlimited" is based on the idea that 99% of folks won't use all that much (and that they can deal with those 1% idiots that torrent 24/7). That's especially true, because this is a phone where intensive data consumption is inconvenient, and they hope wireless tech will outpace phone data use. For everyone to have a decent connection, they need to block tethering, mobile hotspots, sharing, etc.

"Unlimited" is about selling you the "peace of mind" of no overages. It's not about getting a $30/month deal on great speeds, so you can download 1Tb/month of porn to your laptop over a shared wireless medium, or sharing your connection with 20 other people.

In an ideal world you get unlimited phone data bundled with some form of limited tethering, and that's that. It's silly to think otherwise.

Really the only thing keeping me from switching to T-Mo right now is the same thing that forced me to switch off of them in the first place: The absolutely atrocious coverage outside of major metropolitan areas. Unlimited data is of no use when you are outside of the coverage area most of your time.

If you never leave the city, then I would strongly recommend T-Mo, as they treat their customers much better than Verizon or AT&T (no experience with Sprint, so I can't say here), but be aware that coverage will always be an issue anywhere you can't see skyscrapers.

Unlimited water in your pipes? Are you kidding? You can have all the water you want but only if it is accessed through your refrigerator drinking water dispenser, at least on this plan. What? You want to flush a toilet? Sorry, but you can't do that - not with this plan - we don't have a plan for that sorry.

So I'm guessing you have unmetered water at your home? I'm sure the guy with the pool and the lawn pays exactly the same as the guy that just uses water in the kitchen and the bathroom, right? Are you really that stupid?

This is exactly like that. You can pay for the water in m3, with a monthly allowance of 1m3 included with the subscription of the service. If however you don't have either a pool or a garden to water (a lot of people don't), you're able to pay a flat rate (as form of peace of mind), as long as you abide by an "acceptable usage policy".

Is that so hard to understand? Unlimited doesn't exist, it's just limited in some other way. And no, that's not "all water you can ever fit in the pipe".

So, any news on easing the roaming data caps? I was in Iowa this past weekend and roamed to i-wireless and blew through my paltry 50MB of roaming data (that's what you get with the 2GB/"unlimited" plan) by looking at a couple youtube videos.

The real bummer was still not finding a good Stephen Feck dive video before the cap was exhausted.

The point he was making is that you cannot drop an Orange SIM into the phone while you are in the UK or a Globe SIM into the phone if you happen to be in Philippines. You are restricted to the carrier who put the non-removable SIM in the phone. That situation is actually worse than CDMA. You can switch CDMA carriers with the keypad where a permanent SIM needs a phone repairman to change carriers.

T-Mobile's throttling was always a fraud. They never actually bumped you off of 3G/4G frequencies, they just throttled you on the back end to 2G speeds, which (to use the "internet is a series of pipes" anology) means that you're still using a 4" pipe, but being limited to a 1/4" pipes worth of flow, hurting your experience significantly and not freeing up any spectrum for use by anyone else who may want to actually use a 4G connection. The supposed reason for the throttling was that it kept the limited network managable so that everyone could get their fair usage out of it, but unless they are actually restricting me to 2G spectrum, they're not lessening spectrum congestion on the tower at all, I'm still consuming a 4G channel, which means that nobody else can use it, so nobody is winning.

It's hard to imagine why they were ever doing it. In the end it was possibly saving them a few pennies every month, what with backend bandwidth being ridiculously cheap and as near as can be to unlimited, but it seems that you'd lose that with all the customers that started jumping ship to Sprint.

I'm glad that they're finally dropping the charade, I just wish that it meant that I'd be getting my true unlimited back without the need to switch plans (again.)

I think you are assuming the bottleneck is the wrong place. The bottleneck is not in the final hop from your local cell tower to your device. The bottleneck is in their central data centers where all the data streams are bridged out to the internet. Throttling relieves congestion in the datacenter.

The point he was making is that you cannot drop an Orange SIM into the phone while you are in the UK or a Globe SIM into the phone if you happen to be in Philippines. You are restricted to the carrier who put the non-removable SIM in the phone. That situation is actually worse than CDMA. You can switch CDMA carriers with the keypad where a permanent SIM needs a phone repairman to change carriers.

Sounds like a violation of GSM spec, as i swear a removable user module (SIM) is required.

In case you missed a minor difference between your HDTV and your laptop, you may be surprised to know that an HDTV is not a computer.

Tethering means that you are using a connection bridge to access the internet from a computer attached to your phone. You can also tether a computer to a second internet connected computer for those cases where the internet connection is limited to one less device than you are trying to connect, either by license or missing ports.

HDMI is a one way service that allows your 57" TV to be used as an external monitor for the phone. No tethering involved, so no tethering restrictions involved.

Ok.. Answer this then...

When you have a Motorola Atrix, and you buy the Lapdock from AT&T, they force you to get a tethering plan. Why is it considered tethering, if all the lapdock is doing, is giving you a 10" screen, a keyboard, trackpad, etc?

I went through this exersize when I got a bunch of Atrixes for our lab.

Tethering will not be "officially" allowed, doesn't meant you can't get it to work. T-Mobile detection is based on user agent string, easy enough to bypass. You do need to root in most cases.

You sure that's what T-Mobile is doing? That's the retarded way to do it, because there are legit apps that spoof user-agent on purpose to get data back for scraping purposes... For example, I wrote a PS3 Network app, that needs to report itself as a desktop browser, so I can get the right data to log into the Playstation Network and scrape data to populate the mobile app. If T-Mobile just looks at user-agent, it will think my mobile app is from a tethered PC, when it's not.

Also, user-agent is only present on HTTP requests, so if you tether a PC, just use a VPN, and the user-agent string is gone....

I don't know about iPhone, but on Android, you do'nt need root to change user-agent. It's supported by the native browser. It's one of the menu options. Just type "about:debug" into the address bar, and it will enable the debug menu options, one of which, is the ability to change the user agent. I use it all the time, becuase sometimes I'm forced into the "mobile" web page for a site, when my device can handle the desktop version just fine, so I do that to get access to the full content instead of the dumbed down version.

In case you missed a minor difference between your HDTV and your laptop, you may be surprised to know that an HDTV is not a computer.

Tethering means that you are using a connection bridge to access the internet from a computer attached to your phone. You can also tether a computer to a second internet connected computer for those cases where the internet connection is limited to one less device than you are trying to connect, either by license or missing ports.

HDMI is a one way service that allows your 57" TV to be used as an external monitor for the phone. No tethering involved, so no tethering restrictions involved.

Ok.. Answer this then...

When you have a Motorola Atrix, and you buy the Lapdock from AT&T, they force you to get a tethering plan. Why is it considered tethering, if all the lapdock is doing, is giving you a 10" screen, a keyboard, trackpad, etc?

I went through this exersize when I got a bunch of Atrixes for our lab.

It is not tethering. It is AT&T marketing telling customers they have to add the tethering feature to their contract to qualify for an AT&T subsidized lapdock. Totally different issue

The likely rational for AT&T deciding to add tethering to the contract for owners of the lapdock is: If it looks like a laptop, acts like a laptop and will be used as a laptop, then it is likely to load the network like a laptop. This is just an educated guess though, I have no connection to AT&T and do not wish to be an AT&T customer.

If you want the lapdock and do not want the tethering charge, then you might try buying the Atrix and the lapdock separately. That is get the Atrix from AT&T and the lapdock from a vendor that does not report sales to AT&T.

If you want the lapdock and do not want the tethering charge, then you might try buying the Atrix and the lapdock separately. That is get the Atrix from AT&T and the lapdock from a vendor that does not report sales to AT&T.

I knew that... It's just hard to do when you have to buy from a corporate vendor-list Stupid red-tape, lol

Tethering will not be "officially" allowed, doesn't meant you can't get it to work. T-Mobile detection is based on user agent string, easy enough to bypass. You do need to root in most cases.

You sure that's what T-Mobile is doing? That's the retarded way to do it, because there are legit apps that spoof user-agent on purpose to get data back for scraping purposes... For example, I wrote a PS3 Network app, that needs to report itself as a desktop browser, so I can get the right data to log into the Playstation Network and scrape data to populate the mobile app. If T-Mobile just looks at user-agent, it will think my mobile app is from a tethered PC, when it's not.

Yes, that is how they do it (or at least did when I ran into this about 2-3 weeks ago). After about 10-15 minutes of tethering I was presented with their "you have to pay for tethering" screen, I changed the UA String in Chrome and it started working again. Then a day or two later I requested a desktop version of a site on my phone and got the "you have to pay for tethering" screen... I rarely tether, but I just bought a new house and there was a period of a couple weeks where I had to stay with family who don't have internet.

Meh, in my experience T-Mobile's coverage is no better than Sprint's and with Sprint if you don't need roaming you can go Virgin Mobile with unlimited* data, text, and 300 voice minutes for $30/month (plus sales tax if any, no other fees). This is at least 50% less than most other plans when you look at the total cost so unless you really, really like your mobile data (I spend 90% of my life within range of WiFi and when I'm not I generally don't want to be bothered by my phone) it's a great deal.

Ehh I don't know if you've used T-Mobile with any of their quad (or penta) band phones lately then. If you use any phone that has compatible bands for AT&T's 2/3G you can oftentimes use their towers if a T-Mobile tower isn't in the vicinity, they have peering agreements in a number of locales where T-Mobile knows they have spotty signal. I actually couldn't be happier with the coverage I get because of this plus Wi-Fi calling. Doesn't even count as roaming (for texts and calls, does count as data roaming but you can turn that off)

Tethering will not be "officially" allowed, doesn't meant you can't get it to work. T-Mobile detection is based on user agent string, easy enough to bypass. You do need to root in most cases.

You sure that's what T-Mobile is doing? That's the retarded way to do it, because there are legit apps that spoof user-agent on purpose to get data back for scraping purposes... For example, I wrote a PS3 Network app, that needs to report itself as a desktop browser, so I can get the right data to log into the Playstation Network and scrape data to populate the mobile app. If T-Mobile just looks at user-agent, it will think my mobile app is from a tethered PC, when it's not.

Also, user-agent is only present on HTTP requests, so if you tether a PC, just use a VPN, and the user-agent string is gone....

I don't know about iPhone, but on Android, you do'nt need root to change user-agent. It's supported by the native browser. It's one of the menu options. Just type "about:debug" into the address bar, and it will enable the debug menu options, one of which, is the ability to change the user agent. I use it all the time, becuase sometimes I'm forced into the "mobile" web page for a site, when my device can handle the desktop version just fine, so I do that to get access to the full content instead of the dumbed down version.

Right on, that sounds like a cool app. Despite how much of a pain data-scraping apps are to maintain, it's always kinda fun. It seems laughable that T-Mobile would resort to browser user agent sniffing, but if so that's good for us since it's trivially easy to spoof

GSM uses a SIM, allowing easy migration between competitors; CMDA (normally, if not always) locks you into that provider. GSM 1, CDMA 0

GSM has availability everywhere in the world, and is the dominant option everywhere except the US; CDMA is only used on any scale / at all in the USA. GSM 2, CDMA 0.

GSM has more than double the real-world throughput of comparable CDMA data tech (3g; didn't look at fourth gen techs, as deployment and handsets are not yet widespread). GSM 3, CDMA 0.

Those are just a couple ways in which GSM is superior to CDMA. If anyone else has more they'd like to add, feel free. And Bengie, feel free to list some way that CDMA is actually better for someone other than the ISP that owns your ass once you buy in.

Currently I just use Skype over WiFi (with SkypeIn/SkypeOut to call standard phone numbers) as my voice service. Since I'm near WiFi most of the day, and wouldn't want to answer the phone while I'm driving anyway (I'm not a good multi-tasker at all, and would probably kill people if I tried), the need to find WiFi to make a call is generally not much of a problem.

T-Mobile's mobile broadband plans are better than my cable modem service in every way except for the cap. If they uncap the mobile broadband, then it's goodbye Time Warner for me, with the added bonus that I can take my Internet connection with me.

Meh, in my experience T-Mobile's coverage is no better than Sprint's and with Sprint if you don't need roaming you can go Virgin Mobile with unlimited* data, text, and 300 voice minutes for $30/month (plus sales tax if any, no other fees). This is at least 50% less than most other plans when you look at the total cost so unless you really, really like your mobile data (I spend 90% of my life within range of WiFi and when I'm not I generally don't want to be bothered by my phone) it's a great deal.

Ehh I don't know if you've used T-Mobile with any of their quad (or penta) band phones lately then. If you use any phone that has compatible bands for AT&T's 2/3G you can oftentimes use their towers if a T-Mobile tower isn't in the vicinity, they have peering agreements in a number of locales where T-Mobile knows they have spotty signal. I actually couldn't be happier with the coverage I get because of this plus Wi-Fi calling. Doesn't even count as roaming (for texts and calls, does count as data roaming but you can turn that off)

I had three different T-Mobile phones that supported AT&T's bands (one of which was an original model iPhone!), and my experience with roaming is that about 75% of the time it didn't work at all. I'd see the AT&T logo and it would pop up Edge support, but attempting to load a webpage would result in a timeout, and trying to make a call would just have my phone tell me that it doesn't actually have service after all. SMS messages sent (or that were sent to me) would just never arrive.

From what I can tell, AT&T just doesn't care if the roaming feature on their tower is broken.

Meh, in my experience T-Mobile's coverage is no better than Sprint's and with Sprint if you don't need roaming you can go Virgin Mobile with unlimited* data, text, and 300 voice minutes for $30/month (plus sales tax if any, no other fees). This is at least 50% less than most other plans when you look at the total cost so unless you really, really like your mobile data (I spend 90% of my life within range of WiFi and when I'm not I generally don't want to be bothered by my phone) it's a great deal.

Ehh I don't know if you've used T-Mobile with any of their quad (or penta) band phones lately then. If you use any phone that has compatible bands for AT&T's 2/3G you can oftentimes use their towers if a T-Mobile tower isn't in the vicinity, they have peering agreements in a number of locales where T-Mobile knows they have spotty signal. I actually couldn't be happier with the coverage I get because of this plus Wi-Fi calling. Doesn't even count as roaming (for texts and calls, does count as data roaming but you can turn that off)

I had three different T-Mobile phones that supported AT&T's bands (one of which was an original model iPhone!), and my experience with roaming is that about 75% of the time it didn't work at all. I'd see the AT&T logo and it would pop up Edge support, but attempting to load a webpage would result in a timeout, and trying to make a call would just have my phone tell me that it doesn't actually have service after all. SMS messages sent (or that were sent to me) would just never arrive.

From what I can tell, AT&T just doesn't care if the roaming feature on their tower is broken.

I have a German model HTC Desire, t-mobile is my privider here in germany. I was in the US in DC the first two weeks of this august, and while there, with the geman sim card, i got only basic connections (this might be misleading, i turned off international data roaming to avoid a multi-hundred euro bill), and the first thing i did was hit an american t-mobile booth at the Pentagon City Mall and buy a pre-paid american sim and slap it in. I had full data access. I also had full access and connection to the good networks as I moved north for my family reunion in new hampshire (bus via new york.)

Admittedly I'm only giving anecdotal evidence, and only one "event" (my short visit), but it makes me think the issue you see is either a) your phone's settings, or b) the carrier's presets ensuring you only have good service with them, to discourage switching and artificially make their service look better. Possibility B is SOP for american telekoms; why actually compete if you can just make sure everything else works like shit, making you think you're getting a good deal, when you're not? That's the reason the US is 16th and falling for internet in the world, and has been for more than a decade. That's why the US is more than a decade behind in mobile service and features, even on individual cell phones (like NFC) than markets like South Korea and Japan

T-Mobile's throttling was always a fraud. They never actually bumped you off of 3G/4G frequencies, they just throttled you on the back end to 2G speeds, which (to use the "internet is a series of pipes" anology) means that you're still using a 4" pipe, but being limited to a 1/4" pipes worth of flow, hurting your experience significantly and not freeing up any spectrum for use by anyone else who may want to actually use a 4G connection. The supposed reason for the throttling was that it kept the limited network managable so that everyone could get their fair usage out of it, but unless they are actually restricting me to 2G spectrum, they're not lessening spectrum congestion on the tower at all, I'm still consuming a 4G channel, which means that nobody else can use it, so nobody is winning.

It's hard to imagine why they were ever doing it. In the end it was possibly saving them a few pennies every month, what with backend bandwidth being ridiculously cheap and as near as can be to unlimited, but it seems that you'd lose that with all the customers that started jumping ship to Sprint.

I'm glad that they're finally dropping the charade, I just wish that it meant that I'd be getting my true unlimited back without the need to switch plans (again.)

I think you are assuming the bottleneck is the wrong place. The bottleneck is not in the final hop from your local cell tower to your device. The bottleneck is in their central data centers where all the data streams are bridged out to the internet. Throttling relieves congestion in the datacenter.

I addressed this, backend costs are as near as negligible as can be imagined. I help manage a datacenter for one of the largest webhosts in America, data costs are next to nothing and we're dealing with people that can access the internet at full speeds, not the limited bandwidth of the T-mobile network. 42Mbps theoretical top end? Raspberries. That's nothing, you could supply everyone in America that speed of data without breaking a sweat for pennies a day easy and you wouldn't even need great kit to do it. The bottleneck with Cellular is always the final hop, there is only so much spectrum out there, and that spectrum can only be used by one device at a time. That's what worries cell phone companies, the fact that too many users will mean not enough spectrum for everyone. To that end they try to keep data usage down to minimize the amount of time that you're consuming spectrum.

Note that this is the basis for CDMA2k (Verizon and Sprint in USA) and UMTS (AT&T and T-Mobile's "3G" offering).

GSM is as you say tho, in that it divides each channel into time slices and distributing those slices between the devices.

Another thing is that capacity can in part be adjusted by how tightly one pack the cells, as well as slicing those cells up by using directional antennas. The issue there tho is NIMBYs and the fearmongering regarding EM radiation.

Note that this is the basis for CDMA2k (Verizon and Sprint in USA) and UMTS (AT&T and T-Mobile's "3G" offering).

GSM is as you say tho, in that it divides each channel into time slices and distributing those slices between the devices.

Another thing is that capacity can in part be adjusted by how tightly one pack the cells, as well as slicing those cells up by using directional antennas. The issue there tho is NIMBYs and the fearmongering regarding EM radiation.

Spectrum is still by far the most limited leg of the trip. Just because you can split a channel between multiple users (a fact that I was aware of, but didn't mention because it changes nothing) doesn't mean that the amount of spectrum out there isn't incredibly limited. You can still only have so many codes on a frequency. Wired bandwidth is nearly indefinite, you can keep piling it on at pennies a Gbps/user. The limited nature of our airways is always going to be the primary bottleneck in wireless communications.

I've been on Tmo for nearly 2 years -- I believe when I signed up they did not have the throttling after 5GB policy. They also sold me a MyTouch4g while touting the built in thethering, it's what kept me from getting an HD7 at the time.

So I used it. Probably a handful of times a month. After they pushed the gingerbread update (really not that long ago) to the MyTouch I continued to use the tethering for a netbook running Linux Mint. Then one day I was travelling with a friend and his Windows laptop grabbing some updates and cleaning crap off his system and I got a notification on my phone that (paraphrasing) tethering is a paid service that I can contact Tmo to have added to my plan - if tethering is continued it is understood that it will be added to my plan for my convenience.

My guess: they're looking for computers hitting the windows update service (maybe mac updates as well). Has anyone received a similar warning while tethering to another device (android, iOS, or computer with updates shut off)?

Late reply but part of my data is work related, enterprise e-mails for big projects eat up a ton of bandwidth throughout the day, the rest is downloading files from said e-mail for review and finally I do watch a considerable amount of streaming video during my short breaks/down-time.